The Software Requirements Memory Jogger

Ellen Gottesdiener's "Software Requirements Memory Jogger" contains an incredible wealth of clearly-presented requirements information in a small-format book. This inch-thick "pocket book" is easy to carry around and browse through when a busy requirements analyst has a few minutes to spare.

Ellen addresses all aspects of the requirements engineering process: elicitation, analysis, specification, validation, and management. Each chapter contains a wealth of practical techniques that can help any software team improve how it deals with requirements. Ellen describes a plethora of requirements "models," ways to represent different types of requirements-related information. Every technique is placed in a context so the reader can learn why to use it, what it does, and how to do it. The book presents scores of practical tips, based on Ellen's vast experience working with actual teams to develop requirements for software products.

This book is a handy guide that no requirements or business analyst should be without.

Member Reviews:

Review By: Vivek Vaishampayan07/08/2010“The Software Requirements Memory Jogger” is a great reference guide one can use on the job or as a supplement to training. It contains a case study showing how to use tools, techniques, and models in each step of the requirements-gathering process, which is employed to elicit, analyze, specify, validate, and manage software requirements. The book is a great resource to business and technical teams wanting to communicate their needs as they define, develop, and manage software requirements.

The subject matter is covered in a systematic and compact manner. This pocket guide is relevant to QA and testing and shows the relationship between requirements and testing through a requirements trace matrix (RTM). The answers to some fundamental questions related to RTM provide in-depth knowledge about how to validate the requirements. The relationship between requirements and user acceptance testing is also well explained. The author explains why QA analysts and test engineers should get involved in software development projects at an early stage of requirements specifications.

The tabular presentation, showing use cases traced to functional requirements and the inter-relationships between requirements, design elements, code, system tests, and acceptance test, is superb.

It would have been nice to have sections devoted to explaining how to handle dynamically changing requirements, how to deal with redundant requirements, and the challenges of using off-the-shelf tools, as well as an end-to-end perspective on requirements from inception to transition. The defects and enhancements returning to the requirements phase of the system development lifecycle as “new requirements" also are completely forgotten in this book.

Overall this small guide is a big help to both business analysts and technical professionals in all fields of design, development, and testing. I carry this pocket guide with me all the time, and I refer to it frequently.

User Comments

1 comment

Brad Edmonds

This is a great resource for business analysts. I've ordered copies for all of my BAs and it's gratifying seeing them used.